Research
by Victoria Hart
Summary: Camille is semi-new to Ouran Academy, only moving from America a few months before. In efforts to write a romance novel, she turns to the Host Club for sappy lines. But, will she receive her own romance, or will her past keep her from a new love?
1. Chapter 1

Camille grabbed the handle to Ouran Academy's Music Room 3, home of the Ouran Host Club. She remembered her new friend, Haruhi, telling her about the club.

"It's basically a club where hot and rich guys flirt with rich girls, both having too much free time," Haruhi had said.

Camille both wasn't rich and, in her opinion and in the opinion of her tormentors, pretty. She had honey-colored hair that went a few inches past her shoulders, bright and hazel eyes, carried a thick-clothed bag, and wore a dark blue dress because she refused to wear the nasty yellow of the girls' uniform. Her family wasn't poor, but also wasn't extravagantly rich. Her father was a high-paid mechanical engineer and her mother was a medium-paid software engineer. Camille's family, including herself, were originally from America, but the company that her parents both worked at moved to Japan. Her family followed and she spent her summer learning Japanese. The only reason why she had been able to go to Ouran Academy was because she was working afterschool. Camille chuckled.

It was now two months into her second year of high school.

"Remember, you're not here to fall in a dopey love with a boy. You are here to research for a romance novel," A voice in Camille's head warned her as she prepared to pull open the door. She pulled open the door and watched in awe as rose petals fluttered out of the room past her head. She entered the room and saw boys that she recognized from other grade levels and some in her own sitting at little couch-and-coffee-table stations with girls surrounding them in yellow glob. She rolled her eyes. She looked at Haruhi as she looked up from her own mob of girls and waved. Haruhi got herself away from the girls and walked over to Camille in her boy uniform. The host moved her into a corner away from the other hosts that she wouldn't be confused as a client, but yet she was close enough that she could still hear them. Camille sighed as Haruhi walked back to the girls "he" was supposed to entertain.

Camille moved to take her notepad and pen out of her bag when she heard a pen scratch to her right.

"So, you're the American that Haruhi had told us about," Kyoya said while adjusting his glasses. Camille blushed lightly at the title and looked in the boy's eyes. He smiled a smile of slight amusement and left her.

Camille quickly focused back on her notes for lovey-dovey lines.

She felt like she was going to puke listening to Tamaki, a feeling of awkwardness listening to Haruhi, and a fit of squealing listening to Hikaru and Kaoru and Mitsukuni/Honey. Camille sighed as she closed her notebook with five pages of lines-almost a page per person-and lean back in her chair. The last of the girls were now leaving and she stood up to leave when the twins closed the door right before she went through the doorway.

"Don't think we aren't going to let you get notes without getting something out of you," Tamaki said, making Camille flush with embarrassment.

"I…I don't think I could pretend to be a boy like Haruhi, though," Camille said while looking down at the ground. A chortle of laughter followed.

"We aren't going to have you do that. We already have Haruhi," Kyoya said, receiving a snicker from the twins, and he swept down into a bow, "I have the honor of working with you on making sure the club stays in its budget. Don't say that you can't do or like math, we have checked your grades and your interests, Miss Electrical-Engineer-Wannabe." Camille's head drooped forward.

"Well, I guess I have no other choice," Camille said and the Host Club smiled.

"The other reason is that you know that Haru-chan is a girl!" Honey said, making Camille's face turn serious.

"Really. I've known Haruhi for at least a year, and you guys don't trust me! Geez, I didn't know these guys that you hang with, Haruhi, were so dense," Camille said, the Host Club, excluding Haruhi, Mori, and Kyoya, became white with extreme shock. Honey was close to tears.

"I'm not dense…am I, Cami-chan?" Honey asked Camille, who immediately felt bad.

"I wasn't meaning you. You're not dense. I was meaning that Tamaki is kindof dense, and you're too cute to be dense," Camille replied and the twins started to laugh at their saddened "king." Tamaki quickly snapped out of the funk and he and the other Host Club members except for Kyoya moved to the door.

"Well, it's time for us to go home. Have a good night of budgeting!" Tamaki said over his shoulder, dragging Haruhi out behind him. Camille reached to the door and discovered it was locked from the outside.

"Hey, what the hell? What are you guys playing at?" Camille angrily yelled at Kyoya, who just took it as straight as a tack.

"We need to account…and you said we were dense. But I guess you could be a hypocrite," Kyoya said and she blushed.

"Fine…just so that you know, I won't enjoy it," Camille said while crossing her arms and Kyoya, oddly, smiled.

"Good," the vice-president host said while leading her to a table with a file folder on it, "Here are this month's bills. You take this half, and I'll take this half." Camille watched awe as Kyoya quickly split the one pile of bills into two. She reached for the graphing calculator on her bag when the host put his hand on hers to stop it.

"No calculators, only pens and paper," Kyoya stated and Camille slumped. Both sat at each end of the table and quickly started calculating the totals.

Camille shook in surprise as she looked at her final total around fifteen minutes later.

"You...you guys have spent…¥7,992,169.94…in half a MONTH!" She yelled in surprise and Kyoya looked up.

"Well, that was also when we had a large party to entertain our guests on the first day of school. That was probably half of it," the boy said while going back to his work.

"That's, like, 100,000 dollars in American money!" Camille slumped onto the table, "Oh well, you guys are rich, right…you guys will be able to pay for this."

Kyoya looked up again, this time showing another entertained smile.

"At least you've understood this at a rate faster than Haruhi," he met her embarrassed gaze with his own, oddly, playful one, "Maybe you aren't as dense as I first thought."

Kyoya immediately became flustered and stood up, grabbing both his and Camille's papers. He unlocked the door with haste and ran out the door, leaving Camille both confused and embarrassed.


	2. Chapter 2

Camille looked up at her ceiling, her whole room with no light.

"Wow, that Ouran Host Club sure is odd. I have no idea how Haruhi can deal with it," she thought.

"But what about Kyoya? Are you calling him odd, too?" A voice piped up in her head. She turned toward her right wall.

"No…but he is…different...I can't think of a word that describes him, or can even be associated with him. Haruhi is confusing, Tamaki obnoxious, even I can say that the twins are mischievous…but I can't describe Kyoya," Camille answered the voice.

She sighed and felt tears in her eyes as she remembered her last love:

**She was meandering through the halls of her public middle school on a highway, miles away from any sort of a town. She had stayed after school to go to an academic team meeting and she had missed the after school bus. Now she was waiting for her mother to pick her up. She had heard voices echoing through the halls and had followed it to the source.**

**She was thirteen and in a huge crush with a childhood friend.**

**Camille, her sandy hair in a ponytail and she in a pale blue t-shirt and blue jeans, looked around the corner and saw him. His short brown hair was flat against his head and his black tee was loose on his skinny frame. An older and stronger boy by the name of Tyrone had a shaved head and dark blue eyes had covered Joseph's face with bruises prior to her finding of them.**

**"Don't you dare look at Emily ever again! You hear!" Tyrone yelled in Joseph's face when Camille couldn't take in anymore. She ran out from her hiding place and put herself between Tyrone and the now-sinking Joseph. The bully's face filled with more rage as she folded her arms.**

**"Move out of the way, nerdette," Tyrone yelled and Camille had mischievously smiled.**

**"No," she said with pride.**

**The crack of Tyrone's hand meeting Camille's cheek echoed through the empty hallways.**

**"I said move!" The persecutor repeated and, through the sting, the rebel refused to budge.**

**Then it hit her: her coach was still here, but on the other side of the school.**

**She looked toward her crush with plea to do something, but then her heart fell when he looked at her with fear in her eyes. The bully prepared to strike again when Camille yelled to Joseph, "Go get Mr. Smith! I'll distract him!"**

**Her heart fell even more when he took off running down the hallway and left her with the bully. She took a breath and looked Tyrone in the eye right before she jumped into the air…**

Camille's alarm clock went off and she read the time being 6:00 A.M., it was time for her to wake up for school.

"Wow," she thought as she sat up in her bed, "I didn't realize that I had fallen asleep!"

* * *

Hey, it is I-the AUTHOR! *evil laugh* Sorry this isn't as long as the first chapter! The bold text, in case if you didn't know why I bolded it (no offense to anyone who got it right away), is supposed to be her dream/memory. Please Comment, I'm okay with any type of critique; good or bad!


	3. Chapter 3

"Kyoya…hey, Earth to Kyoya!" Kyoya shook his head and blinked quickly while Tamaki waved his hand in Kyoya's face, "Hey, are you okay? You don't look so good. Are you sick…no, that's impossible. Your family owns the biggest medical facilities in Japan…allergies…no, parents in medical field. I got nothing." Kyoya smacked the boy upside the head.

"I…I think I'm just tired. That's all," Kyoya said.

"You, tired?" The French-Japanese boy laughed, "Impossible! You get the best sleep out of us, including the Host Club."

"I didn't get much sleep…I only got a few hours' worth," Kyoya groggily muttered while rubbing his eyes.

Kyoya, however, knew this wasn't the case. He could function well with two hours of sleep, but it wasn't sleep deprivation. It was her.

Camille.

He couldn't fall asleep, however, it was because he was thinking about her.

"I feel like I was a jerk last night," Kyoya whispered and Tamaki looked up.

"What was that?" The blonde confusedly asked.

"Nothing, nothing at all, Tamaki. Go back to the worksheet. Excuse me, but when is our next day of business?" Kyoya asked the "King."

"This Friday. Why?" Tamaki asked right when the bell rang for lunch.

"No reason," Kyoya said over his shoulder as he grabbed his things and left the room. Tamaki saw a Hawaii travel magazine on his friend's desk.

"Hey," Tamaki said absentmindedly, only to see that he was gone. The classroom air conditioner let out a gust of air and the first page of the guide opened up to a hula dancer concert, igniting Tamaki's imagination.


	4. Chapter 4

Camille sighed as she entered Music Room 3 that next Friday afternoon. She blinked as she saw a beach-paradise smacked her in the face.

"Cami-chan!" Camille heard Honey yell as he jumped onto her neck and hugged it with the full force of his small body. She blinked as she saw that Honey was wearing a Hawaiian hula dancer costume of a grass skirt and a coconut bra.

"What the…" She started and then gasped as she saw that the rest of the Ouran Host Club, except for Haruhi, were all wearing the same hula outfit as Honey, excluding Tamaki who wore a Hawaiian prince costume. Camille sighed, but then sucked the sigh back in as her gaze stopped on Kyoya. She met his gaze and both blushed, she more than him.

"So, Miss Author, whatcha going to write about today?" Hikaru asked, putting his arm over the blushing girl's shoulders.

"Yeah, who's it this time? Tamaki? Mori? Honey?" Kaoru chimed in, following his brother's actions.

"Or maybe us?" Both twins asked in unison.

"No. I uh actually make a collection of all of your uh 'pick-up lines,'" Camille nervously answered. The door squeaked and all of them turned toward the door. A few girls that Camille couldn't recognize looked into the room, all wearing their gender's uniform. Tamaki swept into a bow.

"Welcome, ladies. Gentlemen, we have guests," Tamaki said in his "romantic voice," as Camille called it. The girls ooh'd and ahh'd at the scenery and Camille rolled her eyes while sitting down in her corner. She wasn't surprised when she heard the pen scratching of Kyoya.

"Hello Kyoya," Camille said, not even looking up from her notepad.

"Camille," she heard him say.

Silence came afterward.

"So, what do you think of the décor?" Kyoya asked, breaking the silence.

"It's unique. I'll guess that you pushed Tamaki to think of this theme," she said, and even without looking up she could tell he was smiling.

"Very nice theory. Explain."

"The fact that Tamaki is from France is a pointer. That and Haruhi told me about the time that you assisted in his themes with Maui theme," Camille said, now showing off a Cheshire cat grin. She felt herself pulled out of the chair and surprisedly saw that Kyoya now held her in an embrace. Everyone in the room now looked at the two of them.

"You have to be the one thing that daunts me. It's like you pi, you just cannot be fully understood," Kyoya said and a now-blushing Camille thought she saw blue-purple roses bordering his face in one long and thorny stem. Even though she knew the room was most likely filled with the squeals of girls, she couldn't hear anything other than her drumming heartbeat or see anyone other than Kyoya. She watched as he cupper her face and leaned down. Then, they came.

The smack.

The fear.

The fall.

The jump.

She pulled out of his arms quickly with tears in her eyes. As easily as everyone else in the room, Camille could see the mix of confusion, shock, and anger in his eyes.

"I'm sorry…I just can't…" She said, running out of the room, her hair flying out behind her.


End file.
